Were he still illusioned, that poem would never have wasted
its aesthetic fragrance within such close confines. It would have been
most neatly printed in calendar form and sent to appreciative friends.
But though the majority of us have become chary of the muse, there are
some who have never seen through her trickery. To this unfortunate
class belonged a certain Mrs. Simons--her real name is charitably
withheld--who found that she could gratify a moody disposition, of
which she was the unhappy possessor, by writing verses. No one
appreciated them, but, far from dampening her enthusiasm, it afforded
her a sort of bitter joy, that considerably increased her already
large number of available themes. Her poems now proclaimed that she,
Mrs. Simons, was singing to stocks and stones; no one would listen,
and her tender nature would soon succumb to this unwarranted neglect.
But triumph would come, when, as a cold corpse, she would lie in an
open grave, with all her formerly unsympathetic friends and relatives
weeping and wringing their hands at the sad spectacle.
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